Yahoo DSP Adds Scope3 Climate Shield to Help Brands Achieve Sustainable Performance

Yahoo is the latest DSP to integrate Climate Shield, but it’s not the only step they’ve taken to help brands incorporate sustainability into their programmatic workflow. A long-time partner of Scope3, Yahoo has been bolstering its sustainability offerings over the last year to meet brands where they are.

Recognizing brands are at many different stages of sustainability action, Yahoo's flexible approach has ensured brands can buy lower carbon media how they want while still delivering results against campaign goals. Our recent work with USAA is a prime example, read the case study here.

Chandra Cirulnick, VP of Global Supply Partnerships at Yahoo spoke with us about the decision to expand our partnership, how sustainability drives marketing outcomes, and Yahoo’s long-term plans to support brands on their carbon reduction journey.

Brands seek solutions to reduce emissions within their programmatic media buying workstream. How is Yahoo solving that need?

Chandra Cirulnick: Yahoo is a long-time supporter of carbon reduction in advertising. At the same time, we are here to support client goals. We have solutions for advertisers at every stage. Each advertiser is on a journey as it relates to their environmental impact and how that interacts with their other campaign goals. If they are looking for guidance, we can provide that. If they have developed their own strategy, then we support that, too.

With the new Global Media Sustainability Framework (GMSF) guidelines and pending regulation, more and more brands are actively working on sustainability plans and looking at how to execute them. Today, advertisers are in the early stages of determining their strategies. Although, we also work with advertisers who are further along, and have started testing and improving campaigns with specific sustainability KPIs.

Yahoo expanded its Scope3 partnership to include Climate Shield – why should brands who buy through Yahoo today care?

Chandra Cirulnick: Yahoo has a history of partnering with Scope3 for Green Media Products, and we’ve recently transitioned them into our DSP and Public Deals Library. There are several always-on SSP deals that live in our library as well as some available upon request, which are global.

We are especially excited about the Climate Shield integration which makes Scope3’s data set directly actionable through prebid segments. It is essentially an “easy button” that advertisers can use to seamlessly buy low-carbon media in our marketplace. In early testing, we’re seeing advertisers benefit from the dynamic nature of the solution. The real-time element was a major reason for our decision to offer Climate Shield.

What is important about Yahoo’s partnership with Scope3 for its brand advertisers?

Chandra Cirulnick: In our research with USAA, we found that 76% of consumers believe businesses should actively embrace sustainable practices. Consumers look at brands to take steps to be more sustainable, and brands want to be more sustainable, but they want measurable proof of their efforts.

In working with Scope3, we can give brands who are buying sustainable media some of those proof points – at least for their digital campaigns. Early testing together has shown that brands opting to use Scope3 powered products through Yahoo are meaningfully lowering the carbon footprint of their campaigns. Improved campaign performance has been another benefit.

Whether emission efficiency was the intention or not when eliminating Made for Advertising (MFA) or reducing hops in the supply chain, we see lower emissions. We also tend to see other benefits like lower eCPMs or a higher percentage of working media and other positives as a result of the partnership.

USAA’s campaigns were a great example. Their campaign emissions were already below the US emissions benchmark but wanted to reduce further. Scope3’s data and analysis uncovered more opportunities to decarbonize, which led to an additional 11% reduction in total emissions, with a 14% decrease in distribution and storage emissions and a 6% reduction in consumer use emissions.

To make that happen, they identified strategies like optimizing away from carbon-intensive publishers and MFA sites, which reduced both emissions and wastage. At the same time, Scope3’s strategies improved USAA’s cost efficiencies, with a 17% reduction in eCPMs and a 22% reduction in cost per site visit (CPSV).

Tell me about other ways Yahoo is helping decarbonize media buying in your platforms

Chandra Cirulnick: In addition to offering our advertisers ways to buy low-carbon media, we target a few sources of carbon in the market that stand out. One is made for advertising or MFA sites, which emit 26% more carbon than non-MFA sites.

Yahoo Backstage is a direct-to-publisher supply offering that integrates publishers to Yahoo DSP through the publisher’s header bidder or ad server. Within this curated set of publishers, we've eliminated MFA sites, giving brands an organic MFA-free solution. We also have partnerships with MFA-free Exchange solutions and give advertisers access to MFA avoidance targeting tools.

In order to minimize unnecessary hops in the supply chain, our DSP offers a number of SPO tools, in addition to Yahoo Backstage, that clients can use to be more direct and strategic in how they eliminate carbon emissions. Finally, Yahoo DSP also curates publisher and exchange-level green PMPs and green digital OOH packages on solar-powered and LED screens, as well as on EV charging units. Ultimately, our goal is to provide advertisers with the transparency, tools and control they need to make informed decisions and execute their strategies.